Bali climate conference ends with watered-down declaration
Almost 200 countries agreed in Bali to launch negotiations towards an agreement in 2009 to address climate change on the basis of a watered-down declaration. But they failed to translate the findings or recommendations of the scientific community into a corresponding global political response.
The decision – coming about 16 hours after the deadline had expired on December 14 midnight – is an essential part of the Bali Roadmap, but has no destination in the sense that it does not mention any numeric range to guide the level of ambition during the two-year negotiations striving for greenhouse gas emission cuts. Nor does this roadmap require two of the largest emitters of the world, India and China, to take on reduction commitments.
The roadmap, as it is called, was only finalised after all-night talks among the high-level delegates of a select group of countries behind closed doors. Even in the early afternoon, when the talks were still stalled over three words, Ban Ki-Moon, the UN secretary general, made a brief but impassioned intervention. He said he was disappointed with the manner the talks were being held and pleaded the parties to continue their negotiations until they all agreed.
The fate of the roadmap swung back and forth like a pendulum as one issue after another came to fore and were resolved only after intense negotiations. At one point, the top official of the UN climate regime, Yvo de Boer, broke down into tears and left the conference hall in the face of sharp criticism from China.
The mood after the US agreement, however, quickly swung from sombre to elation, rather like the fate of the roadmap itself, and there were rounds of applause and congratulations.
The UN climate change conference, also host to the 13th conference of parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, decided to launch formal negotiations on a watered down text that is bound to disappoint environmentalists as well as hard-line delegates even from the European Union.
Ban Ki-Moon, however, strongly welcomed the outcome since the three fundamental benchmarks – launch of negotiations, deadline of 2009 for those negotiations and deciding upon an agenda of those negotiations – had been achieved.
Yvo de Boer, visibly elated after a stressful two weeks, emphasised on the need to ‘move quickly’ since there was a huge task ahead of the parties to be completed in a very short time.
The current climate change conference was expected to deliver a strong message to humanity that the leaders are indeed concerned about the future of the planet. Throughout the conference it was repeated by numerous quarters, including the highest officials of the climate change regime, delegations of large countries, international non-governmental organisations, environmentalists and activists, that findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was solidly based on science and there could not be any doubting the panel’s recommendations for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, to prevent a global temperature rise of two degrees Celsius over that of pre-industrial level. Apparently such a scenario would bring about substantial and permanent change in global weather pattern, giving rise to extreme weather events, including river flooding, tropical cyclones and droughts.
At least several hundred million people in Africa and Asia are said to be vulnerable to climate change while millions are expected to become climate refugees, including many in Bangladesh, which is considered one of the most vulnerable countries.
Instead of explicitly referring to the IPCC fourth assessment findings mentioning dates and required levels of emission reduction in the third paragraph, and a range of emission reduction by the developed countries – the much debated 25 to 40 per cent – the text calls for ‘deep cuts in global emissions’ of greenhouse gases ‘as indicated’ by the IPCC fourth assessment.
But the strong US opposition to the mention of any numeric targets even in the preamble, which merely sets a moral binding, saw the range deleted. The manner of referencing the IPCC findings was always going to be a tricky agenda as UN climate chief indicated even on Friday evening.
The IPCC recommendations include several ranges of emission cuts of which the most ambitious was incorporated into the text. Future negotiations are almost certain to decide on a lower range, if not the lowest, that the panel had indicated.
Reportedly the talks hinged on three adverbs – measurable, reportable and verifiable – that the developing countries did not accept when applied in the context of their mitigation actions.
Instead of ‘Measurable, reportable and verifiable nationally appropriate mitigation actions by developing country Parties in the context of sustainable development, supported by technology and enabled by financing and capacity-building’, the current text states ‘Nationally appropriate mitigation actions by developing country Parties in the context of sustainable development, supported and enabled by technology, financing and capacity-building, in a measurable, reportable and verifiable manner’.
The previous texts also mentioned the word commitment in the context of mitigation, while the current text appears to shift the onus on to the developed countries.
Among the other major decisions are adaptation funds that have been ‘operationalised’ in theory and are estimated to grow to a measly $300 million available for all developing countries that suffer from several weather events. However, there was no agreement on the key issue of practical adaptation measures, such as how to integrate adaptation into national policies.
This issue is expected to be negotiated at later meetings of relevant subsidiary bodies.
The other supposed success story, technology transfer was decided to take place through scaling up investment and concrete demonstration projects to attract more business.
There have been some progress in avoided deforestation, an agenda strongly advocated by Indonesia among others, and countries might even get credit in such schemes.
Author: Tanim Ahmed. Source: The New Age
Category: Climate Change
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